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tim
at 8/17/2005 09:02:00 PM

Finding time to make the effort. That's the key.

In recent years we've seen our valley invaded by developers intent on carving up and selling our daily views and vistas as half-acre luxury homes for New York and Philly expatriates. I've seen this happen twice in my life: first, in northeast New Jersey, as the woods around my house were razed to make a commuter town instead. Next, in southwest Florida, as developers rushed in like locusts to build strip-malls and gated communities on every scrap of beauty they could find.

Now here.

And it's not just trees and views that suffer. It's the culture as well. These new people have no shared memory of our towns, they have no connection to the places and organizations we love. To them, their home is an address, no more.

We need to tell them. We need to show the newcomers what our home is about. We need to tell the story of why we love living here, so as to pass along our pride by opening their eyes. We need to convince businesses of the value in being authentic. The valley's not just a carbon-copy replica of every other place on the planet. We've got realness around us, and it's in danger of being erased by short-sighted greed. Now's the time to save what we love, before it's gone.

So renewed of purpose, we begin again the Storymill struggle. To help, please write something or drop me a line.

tim
at 9/19/2004 01:43:10 PM

Hurricane Ivan blew through town yesterday, causing widespread flooding in the Lehigh Valley. Particularly hard hit was the Colonial Industrial Quarter in Bethlehem, home to the 1762 Waterworks, which is featured on this website. One of our Storymill Partners, Historic Bethlehem Partership, is asking for donations to help with the flood recovery.

Quite a lot is brewing lately at Lehigh Valley Storymill. We've begun work with Historic Bethlehem Partnership to bring their considerable archive of historic photographs to Storymill. We're hoping to get the community involved as we annotate these photos, indicating online the who, what, where, and when. One fun idea is to encourage people take new photographs in the same spots as historic photos, then allow others to see the before & after on the website. We're also talking with Wildlands Conservancy to add photos and descriptions of the many natural spots around the valley, including the trails described in their excellent "Walks for Wellness" series. Last, we're trying to get some live recordings from Godfrey Daniels on the site, so you can browse the stories, sites, and sounds of the Lehigh Valley. Till then, tune into WDIY on Fridays at 7pm ET to hear "Live from Godfreys." If you're not from the Valley, you can still listen live on the web. Stay tuned!

tim
at 1/01/2004 10:03:12 AM

Happy New Year everyone! We here at Immuexa are planning to devote more time and effort to both Storymill, the product, and Lehigh Valley Storymill, the website, in the coming year. Last year was a difficult one for me personally, leaving little time for the kind of ball-rolling necessary to keep stories coming in. We're looking into hiring a managing director for LVS and we're resuming our effort to get the Storymill Partners together for a meeting at the Ice House to talk more about cooperative grassroots publicity.

In other news, the stories are getting read. Many have over 500 readers. Currently one from Wildlands and one from Godfrey Daniels are vying for the "most read story." The default sort order lists the least-read stories first to give them a chance, so the fact that these old-timers are still holding their own on the bottom of the list is a testiment to people's interest in them.

tim
at 7/04/2003 10:03:26 AM

Wow! We finally reached thirty stories today. Nine months ago, I told the Storymill Partners that Immuexa would embark on the second round of Storymill functionality once we reached thirty stories. Guess it's time to get back to work!

Expect the following new features in coming months:

1. User accounts, which allow readers & authors to log-in

2. Accounts will be able to have new stories mailed to them.

3. Accounts can rank stories, which will help determine favorites.

4. Accounts will remember which stories have been read.

5. Accounts can subscribe to "StoryMonth", our newsletter.

I certainly didn't expect it to take nine months to get thirty stories. Perhaps the upcoming article about Storymill in July's Lehigh Valley Biz magazine will generate more stories. Get your stories in if you want them read by readers of that magazine.

tim
at 9/15/2002 02:16:25 PM

For those that missed the article about Storymill in today's Morning Call, you can read it online. So far the article has given us a healthy spike in visitors, as well as three new stories!

Everyone at Immuexa has a little "Price is Right" bet going on. We're each guessing the number of "reads" and "clicks" before midnight tonight. Guesses range from 100 reads (which is where we're at now, says a smiling Christie) to 2000 (good luck Crissi!). Clicks vary less, from 60 (still holding steady Paula) to 650 (Crissi, again, the optimist). The winner gets a free dinner.

tim
at 9/14/2002 06:00:00 PM

Today we put in "read counts" and "click counts", which are both tied to topics. Whenever someone reads a story about your organization, it records it as a "topic read". Whenever someone clicks your hyperlink (which brings them to your website), it records it as a "topic click". I just zeroed all the counts, so they start right now. To see current counts, visit the following:

Tonight we topped ten stories, and what more, they're good! At least I've enjoyed them. I've also just added "topics" to the stories, so readers can easily see what each story is about. Even better, they can click the topic name and it'll bring them directly to the organization's website. Hopefully this will bring more people to the websites of our Storymill Partners. As I've said before, I'd like Storymill to serve as a kind of raincatcher for everyone else.